4 Developing Stories for Existing Clients (Rebids)
Tradition: Prepare for a rebid as you would any other sales presentation.
New tradition: Pull out all stops, and exploit your relationship.
An existing client going out to bid needs to be approached differently than a prospect. A rebid situation has both significant advantages and disadvantages—making it necessary for incumbents to leverage every advantage they have. Let's explore the disadvantages first; this way, we can recognize the hurdles right off the bat. In Chapter 3, we talked about the power of stories and metaphors. The following is a metaphorical story that illustrates the challenges and opportunities associated with rebids.
My husband Peter and I recently celebrated our twenty-second wedding anniversary. While I love him more than ever, our relationship now is certainly very different than it was during our courtship. We know each other much better than we did 20-plus years ago. We have shared our happiest, and saddest, days together and have celebrated our successes and failures together.
When we were first dating, I remember happily watching football next to him, and he would patiently shop with me. It is fairly obvious to both of us that those days are over. (I guess that's why they call it the honeymoon stage.)
Neither of us plans to rebid for a mate. However, if we were to do so, it would be hard for me to proclaim that I love watching football—and hard for him to praise the wonders of shopping. And there ...
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